* After Nero it would not exceed Od.
+ For the coins of Antioch in detail see Warwick Wroth's (Brit. Mus.) Catalogue of the Gr. Coins of Galatia, Cappadocia, and Syria, 1899, pp. lvili and 158-282.
t On the other aoa? the municipal coins of Antioch had only local currency, and do not concern us here.
§ For coins in detail see Wroth, op. cit. pp. xxxvif. and 45-93, For some interesting constitutional questions raised by the
money of Antioch and Cwsarea, see Pick, Zeit. f. Numism. xiv. 1887, p. 204 ff.
1 For specimens of those struck n.c, 15-a.p, 57, and therefore in use among the Jews till the destruction of Jerusalem, see Babelon, Les Perses Achéménides, No. 2008 ff.
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of Juda from A.D. 6 to the outbreak of the great rebellion of A.D. 66, of whom Pontius Pilate, Felix, restus, and Gessius Florus are the best known, issued SonREE coins in the emperor’s name,* prob- ably at Caesarea. These are of small module, and apparently all of one denomination (the quad- rans (?)). Dnidee Augustus they are dated according to the era of Actium, B.C. 31,7 but under Tiberius by the years of his reign. Though Roman coins, they avoid all representation of living creatures, in deference to the susceptibilities of the Jews. The legend of the obv. generally runs, KAICAPOC or TIB. KAICAP.,; or in full, TIBEPIOY KAICAPOC, as on the coins of Pilate. Thus illustr. No. 12—
Obv. TIBEPIOY KAICAPOC LIS (year 16=A.D. 29-30). Type, a simpulwm.
Rev. \OYAIA KAICAPOC. Three ears of corn bound together. Ai 3. The date shows that this coin was struck by Pontius Pilate.
In order to complete this sketch of coins cir- culating in Palestine in the first century of our era, a single reference must be made to the money of the numerous cities (e.g. Samaria-Sebaste and the cities of the Decapolis) to which Rome had granted the right to strike ‘autonomous’ bronze coins. The circulation of these, it is true, was local and restricted, yet they are full of interest to the historical student,t who is referred to the classical treatise of M. de Sauley, La Numis- matique de la Terre Sainte, 1874.
§ 8. Money of the New Testament.—Under this head it is proposed to bring together the references to money and coins in the NT’, at the same time avoiding all unnecessary repetition. In the NT, as in the OT, ‘money’ is still par excellence silver money (ἄργυρος, ἀργύριον), although all three metals are in circulation (cf. Mt 10° χρυσόν---ἄργυρον--- χαλκόν). Large sums are expressed in minas (μνᾶ, AV pound) and talents (τάλαντον). The latter is no longer a weight of silver, but the Roman-Attic talent, which comprised 6000 denarii or drachms (Hultsch, Metrol.2 252, and Index ‘Talent’). It was thus equal to 240 aurei, or £240 (see previous §). The mina (Lk 19'**) is the sixtieth part of the talent, 100 denarii, or £4. Of specific coins, the aureus is only indirectly referred to in the passage above referred to: ‘ provide neither gold, nor silver, nor brass in your purses’ (Mt 10°). On the other hand, the denarius (δηνάριον, EV penny) is men- tioned sixteen times in all in the NT, and con- stantly as the dinar (137) in the Mishna. Its value in our Lord’s time may with sufficient accuracy be set down as 94d., as was shown in the previous sec- tion.¢ Our Revisers unfortunately have still ad- hered to the ridiculous rendering ‘ penny’ instead of admitting the more accurate ‘shilling,’ as
roposed by the American translators, and retain- ing ‘penny’ for the as|| and ‘farthing’ for the quadrans (see below). The Roman taxes were reckoned and paid in denarii (cf. τὸ νόμισμα τοῦ κήνσου, Mt 22"); the ‘image and superscription’ (Lk 20%) of Scontemporary denarius of the emperor Tiberius is given in our plate, No. 13.
Obv. TI. CHSAR DIVI AVG. Ffilius] AVGVS-
TVS. Head of Tiberius, right, laureated.
Rev. PONTIF. MAXIM. Livia seated r.,
holding sceptre and flower.
*The emperor’s peculiar relation to the procuratorial pro- vinces explains why this coinage was not issued in the name of the senate in accordance with the agreement of B.c. 15. See, further, Pick, loc. cit. "
+ See for this question Pick, ζ.6. p. 307f.; Schiirer, HJP n. fi. 80, and cf. Madden's tables.
t This is well shown by the use made of these coins by Schirer in his great work. See HJ P Index under ‘Coins.’
§ The real test, however, of the value of this or of any other coin is its purchasing power, for which see the appendix to this article.
| ‘Let ἀσσάριον (Mt 1029, Lk 126) be translated ‘*penny,” and δηνάριον “shilling,” except in Mt 2219, Mk 1215, Lk 20%, where
the name of the coin should be given.’
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The Greek drachm (δραχμή ; in later Hebrew m ztiz, also x1, by which Onkelos renders correctly the quarter of the shekel, 1 S 95) is only once mentioned by name (Lk 15° ‘ten pieces of silver’). Its value at this time was neither 74d. as AVm, nor 8d. ag RVm, but was the same as that of the denarius in ordinary transactions. In government payments, however, as we saw above, it was tarifled at i of the denarius. The 50,000 ‘pieces of silver (ἀργυρίου, Ac 19") at which the magical books were valued, are also to be understood as denarius- drachms,* the universal unit of calculation. In a previous section it has been shown that the δίδραχμον, or double-drachm, was the Gr. equiva- lent of the half-shekel, the whole shekel being a tetradrachm of Tyrian currency, The didrachm was very rarely coined at this time, and indeed was at all times much rarer than the tetradrachm. Hence it must have been very common, if not the usual custom, for two persons to unite in paying ‘the tribute money’ (τὰ δίδραχμα, Mt 17%)—the annual contribution of every male adult Jew to the maintenance of the temple services—by means of a Tyrian or other tetradrachm on the Pheenician standard. This last is the stater (crarjp, Mt 17”, AV piece of money, RV shekel+) found in the fish’s mouth, which Peter was instructed to pa: as ‘tribute money’ for the Master and himself. The contributions of Jews in foreign lands were collected and changed into gold pieces (0273 darkénim, Shekalim ii. 1, which are not darics but aurei; οἵ. Bab. bath. x. 2) for convenience of transport (see, further, Jos. Ant. XVIII. ix. 1, N. 312, where τὸ δίδραχμον is used precisely as by St. Matthew for ‘half-shekel’). After the de- struction of Jerusalem the half-shekel, otherwise two drachms or denarii (δύο δραχμάς, Jos. BJ vi. vi. 6), was eppropristed by the Roman authorities for the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus (Jos. d.c.). The “thirty pieces of silver’ (τριάκοντα ἀργύρια, Mt 2610 2784), for which our Lord was betrayed, are in all the circumstances more likely to have been thirty Pheenician tetradrachms—hence=120 denarii (£4, 16s.)—from the temple treasury (cf. Zee 11” in LXX), than thirty denarius-drachms.